Queen of Tarts

I'm writing this post from a very popular cafe in Dublin, Ireland. It's called "The Queen of Tarts", and it is popular for a very good reason. I don't believe I've ever seen such beautiful cakes before, and they even have a marvelous gluten-free selection. They serve scones, biscotti, sandwiches, tea, and caffeinated beverages in very elegant glasses. The music is good, the atmosphere is pleasant, and the waitresses are all very friendly. Like everyone else in Ireland. The weather outside is wet and dreary, and I'm looking forward to my bowl of warm, homemade soup and my slice of gluten-free bread.

My last few days in Italy were bittersweet. After I started partici ting more actively in the working life of the agritourismo, Carla, Piero, and Laura really welcomed me into their family. Laura invited me to have a capucchino with her at her favorite cafe,* Medea asked me back to help make more cheese, and I was able to interview Laura, Carla, Massimo, and Fredericko. Massimo was a local fisherman and Fredericko was a local farmer. They mostly let me interview them because they thought I was pretty -- not because they I had helped out so much at the farm. But whatever works.

The interviews were really interesting. I translated my questions into Italian via google translator. Despite google's general genius, it does not do a very good job at translating. Most of the questions were terribly muddled, and there are several minutes of mime during the interview wherein I tried to communicate with Carla just what the question meant. The interviews were also interesting because they were not private affairs. In the states and in Spain, all my interviews have been conducted in private. In Italy, everyone in the restaurant had to be present to contribute their two cents. After I interviewed Carla, she helped me translate my questions as I interviewed the rest of the lot. This was a little awkward for me, but the Italians of the Po Delta seemed comfortable enough. When Fredericko didn't know what to say for "What is your favorite guilty pleasure?" Carla piped up, saying "You know -- sex, drugs, rock and roll!" in english. It was priceless.

Saying goodbye on Wednesday was hard. Laura and I had become very good friends, and I am going to miss her big personality and excellent cooking. Everyone told me that I should study Italian and then come back next year for three months. I would love to visit them again -- I'm not sure about the whole three months thing, but I definitely made some friends in the Po Delta that I would like to keep a part of my life.

I took the train from Loreo to Venice without a hitch. Paolo met me at the train station again, and it was like meeting an old friend. I was so happy to see him. I showed off all the bad Italian I had picked up, and he told me about his recent trip to Spain. He gave up his room for me again, and it was SO nice to have a real bed to sleep in. I weighed my suitcase and discovered that due to all the marmalades and preserves Laura and Medea had given me, it was a few kgs too heavy. So I had a couple bites of each (they were delicious, as usual), and left them with Paolo to enjoy. I managed to bring one small jar of melone marmalata and one small jar of three month old, raw sardines. But I am very happy to know that Paolo will enjoy the rest.

After I had settled in, I asked Paolo if he would let me interview him. After a few moments of hesitation, he graciously agreed, and we conducted the interview right there in his living room. After the interview, we headed out for some more of Venice's best gelato - something I had been looking forward to for weeks. We walked around Mestre for a bit, and then headed back to his apartment. I talked to Alex for a few minutes, and then collapsed into my first mosquito-free sleep in four weeks.

It was a beautiful thing.

Last picture with Paolo

The next morning, Paolo bought my bus ticket and made sure I got on the right bus for the airport. He told me to come back to Italy again so that he could show me southern Italy, and I eagerly promised to do so. 

Statue of justice in Dublin

 I'm afraid that the rest of the world is going to have to wait until I've explored Italy a bit more thoroughly. I am well on my way to falling in love with it.

My flight was perfect. Left on time, only one crying baby, and it was refreshing to hear so much English being spoken after my somewhat isolating month at the Agritourismo. My demise was the chocolate Carla had bought for me as a going away present. I ate far too much of it and drank no water. This, added to the stress of travelling left me with a raging headache by the time I reached the Dublin airport. But it was assuaged greatly by the cool weather and the legendary friendliness of the Irish people. Getting through customs was a breeze. I had expected a bit of difficulty due to my extended stay, but I merely presented my letter from WWOOF Ireland and my proof of insurance, and the customs officer let me through with a smile and a comment about how my life was worth much more than 25,000 dollars (in reference to my insurance).

Last sight of Venice

As soon as I stepped out of the airport terminal, I was struck by the cold. After spending two months in Spain and Italy, anything under seventy degrees feels chilly. It was probably between fifty-five and sixty, so I was definitely a little uncomfortable. I lugged my suitcase to what I thought was my bus stop, and waited there in confusion until another very friendly Irish pointed me in the right direction.

That's a difference between Italians and Irish. With Italians, all you have to do is ask and they'll bend over backwards to help you. With the Irish... all you have to do is look a mite confused.

I spent about ninety minutes on the airport bus and the city bus, but I managed to reach Lochlan's (the fellow I'm couchsurfing with) house just fine. Lochlan is a very lanky, retired Irish man who has been hosting couchsurfers for the past six years. Some stay with him for up to three weeks in one of his extra rooms. He has maps available and all sorts of tips for those of us surfers lucky enough to stay with him. He gave me some time to settle in, and then we rode bicycles into town for coffee with two of his friends. On cobblestones, through the rain, on the left side of the road.

Welcome to Ireland, Aimee.

My raging headache was reignited. Bicycling in Dublin in the rain is NOT easy -- especially when you're doing your best to follow someone who doesn't signal properly. I nearly careened over my handlebars on several occasions, due to unanticipated stops and swerves on the part of my guide. But no one in Dublin seems to signal, so I guess Lochlan's careerning cycling style wasn't an isolated phenomenon. I wonder what biker mortality rate is like in Dublin.

Back at his house, Lochlan made me a hearty Irish dinner. I feasted on warm, heavy, carrot/potato soup, followed by a very filling risotto. Due to my headache, I went to bed shortly after. I talked to Alex for a few minutes, and then drifted off into a sickly sleep, tucked snugly into my sleeping bag in one of Lochlan's spare bedrooms.

I headed downstairs at nine this morning, and Lochlan was putzing around in his tattered slippers and morning robe. He made me tea and offered me a few apples for breakfast, as I couldn't eat the bread and jam typical to the Irish cuisine. We talked for a bit, and then I headed out into the city. My headache was (and is) still pretty nasty, so I decided to really take it easy. The only goals I had were to participate in one of Sandeman's free walking tours and purchase a power converter. The tour was grand, the power converter is in my bag, and I'm about ready to head back to Loch's. There's a free performance of Romeo and Juliet in the park tonight, but I'm too sick and cold to want to go. It's been raining on and off all day, and all I want is to curl up in my sleeping bag at Loch's with a cup of tea and some Oscar Wilde.

So I think I'm going to go do that. I have plenty of time to come back to Dublin and enjoy the extremely active theatre scene here.

f

The most photographed building in all of Dublin 

Lochlann's trinket cabinet

A sign in Lochlann's bathroom

Dublin castle

A beautiful park in Dublin

One of the many humorous pots in Lochlann's kitchen

A park in Dublin

The Famine Memorial 

The Famine Memorial

*There was a miscommunication as to where exactly Laura's favorite cafe was. This resulted in me bicycling up and down the town of Oca Marina for about half an hour. I finally trundled to Medea's and awkwardly asked, "Laura... dove Laura piache bevere cafe?" I'm sure the Italian was atrocious, but Medea seemed to understand. She loudly pointed (yes, Italians do point loudly) me in the direction of the center of Oca Marina, and bid me adieu with a series of "Ciao, bella! Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao bella!"

So I set off once again. I'm sure that all the fifty residents of Oca Marina had seen me make the rounds several times by that time, and I was feeling a bit red behind the ears. I stopped at what I thought was the cafe where "Laura piache bevere cafe," and headed inside. After looking around and NOT seeing Laura, I asked the very nice barista whether or not she knew Laura. She did. As did the men playing cards right outside. As did the woman pouring a shot of grappa. As did the man drinking the shot of grappa. As did the two raggazzi licking their gelato in the booth behind me. Everyone knew Laura, no one knew where she drank her coffee, and everyone insisted on helping me find out exactly "dove Laura piache bevere cafe?"

The barista looked up Laura's phone number and one of the card players called her up. Apparently, Laura likes to drink coffee at a little cafe two km outside of Oca Marina.

So with half the town of Oca Marina loudly pointing me in the right direction, I hopped on my bike and headed to meet Laura for my morning capucchino.

A Morning with Medea

A morning with Medea

The sun was just beginning to rise over the groggy Po River. The roosters were crowing, the donkeys were bellowing, and the geese were hissing. Much to my delight, the dogs were not barking. After tentatively poking my head out of my caravan, I concluded that Bella and Brando were probably off gallivanting about the Italian countryside, disemboweling an unfortunate white heron. The hypothetical heron's demise was an unexpected boon for me, as it meant that I could stop and take pictures on the eight km bicycle ride to Medea's house without fear of being knocked over by a seventy-five pound puppy.

So I left the Agritouismo Ca'Lattis on my clunky blue bike at the un-italian hour of six thirty. It really was a gorgeous morning and I was able to take a couple of lovely pictures of the sun rising over the Po. By the time I'd satisfied my touristy/photography bug, It was about eight o'clock and high time to go to Medea's.

I jostled along down the little dirt road, past two large, red storehouses, to Medea's little "pecorino" dairy. Medea stood outside in her rather frumpy floral print dress, a well-used apron, and wielded two gallon buckets in both hands.

"Ciao, Aimee!"

"Ciao, Medea!"

And that is the only fragment of the morning's conversation that I could understand in its entirety. But Italians don't really seem to care if you can understand them or not. They'll animatedly babble on regardless, giving you an almost embarrassing amount of praise when you repeat a word you somewhat understand.

"Fichi, Aimee?"

"FICHI! SI!"

"Bravo, Aimee! Bravissimo! Aprendi Italiano veloce!"

After basking in the unmerited praise, I scampered up the fig tree with all the agility and spryness I had earned during my three weeks of yoga camp. Amused and just a little awed, Medea gasped and bellowed up at me, "Gatto, Aimee! Tu gatto!" as she stood below, catching the figs I dropped ever so gently into her basket. After the basket was full, I leaped to the ground in one swift motion, sending the ducks below me into a quacking frenzy, and tearing a three inch hole in the crotch of my jeans.

Which Medea seemed to think was the best thing ever.

After she had finished laughing at my overambitious attempt at fichi albero climbing, Medea led me into her dark, cement, cheese making chamber. Lining one wall was a slightly slanted, long wooden table with one of Medea's two gallon buckets dangling on one end. Flies circled the table like miniature vultures, buzzing in anticipation of the whey upon which they would soon feast. Along another wall was the giant, stately cauldron, in which a few gallons of sheep's milk had already formed a smooth, delicate, thick curd. Next to the cauldron, propped up against the dingy wall, leaned a long, hollow stick that branched out into three curled fingers for stiring the curd. Along a third wall, at a small table in the corner, sat an old, pudgy gentlemen with a flyswatter, a newspaper, and several coughdrops. He would pop a coughdrop in his mouth, read a few lines of news, and then get distracted by an unsuspecting fly. The concentration of this old Italian was a marvel to behold. He would immediately drop his paper, fix his gaze on his meandering prey, and ever slow slowly, move in with the flyswatter; lower lip jutting out, brow furrowed, overalls straining at the clasp as he leaned forward...

Alas, his time would have been better spent reading the news. During my visit, I believe the old gentlemen in overalls might have sent one fly to an early grave, despite his extreme concentration and perfect calculations. The rest of them returned to haunt Medea's cheese table.

Medea is a cheese wizard. She doesn't use a thermometer or anything remotely technological. She thrusts her finger into the curd and knows if it is "tropo caldo" or "tropo freddo." She had me thrust my finger in a few times as well, but I do not possess her enviable built in finger thermometers, so I was glad that Medea was always there to naysay my "Questo buono" with "Nooooo! Tropo freddo!"

When the fromaggio was at last able to satisfy Medea's demanding finger, she dove in with both hands, gently transforming the amalgamating curd into a beautiful mozzerella cheese. She scooped the curd into a mold and set me to work squeezing the excess whey out of the mozzerella. The flies descended, and I panicked a bit, thinking that the flies would ruin the cheese. However, Medea just picked the dead ones out of the whey river, turned to me and said, "Naturale!" in a very impressive air.

The rest of the morning with Medea would be tedious to write and boring to read. Let it be sufficient to say that I helped with the cheese, shot a stream of hot whey all over my already torn jeans (Medea was delighted), and rode my bicycle home to the Agritourismo after, feasting on some of the sweetest figs I've ever had.

Finding Figs - Agritourismo Ca'Lattis

I'm writing this post from inside the restaurant of the Ca'Lattis Agritourismo. Carla is snoozing in one of the two cushioned checkered chairs by the screen door, but blearily jumps up every few minutes or so to check on the marmalade she's got bubbling away in the kitchen. In the two and a half weeks I've been here, I don't think that woman has ever had a moment of uninterrupted rest. I suppose that's what happens when one is fortunate/unfortunate enough to have one's job be an extension of one's home-life.

This is where I take my afternoon siesta

The afternoons have been swelteringly hot lately, and as the midday meal is the most abundant (and irresistibly good) of the day, Anthony and I spend a good two hours after lunch in a vegetative, heat/food induced stupor. He goes off to collapse in his caravan, and I either take a nap next to Carla in the second checkered chair, or wile away my brainfog by writing some rather abysmal addition to one of my many plays that are all "just about there." I probably should be off napping in my caravan, but the screens meant to keep the offensive mosquitoes out of my cluttered little trailer find it much more convenient to rest on my pillow than on the windows where they belong, thus letting in the swarm of oh-so-eager blood thirty mongrels lurking just outside. My description may sound a bit over the top, but I do believe I'm underselling the mendacity of the typical Italian mosquito. In all my years of eluding the loathsome buggers, I've never been quite so outwitted. These mosquitoes are called "tiger mosquitoes", and they have all the speed, sneakiness, and devious cunning of the animal after which they are so aptly named. They are completely unavoidable. During my morning runs, they would keep pace with me, forcing me to always run just a bit faster. During yoga, they'd always land on the part of my body where the particular pose I was practicing prohibited me from promptly swatting them. They wait by the door of my caravan, in the shower, and the multiple bites on my ass are proof as to their exquisite timing when it comes to stalking me on the toilet. They also seem to be able to turn on and off the characteristic high-pitched "Bzzzzz" at their leisure. They turn off the volume during the day, thus becoming an absolutely lethal, unavoidable enemy, but at night... at night they torment me with the damning "Bzzzzz" that will not let me drift off into the sweet slumber I so crave after a long day of scooping poo and schlepping snails. In the cover of darkness, they "Bzzzzz" away, knowing full well that my mad, crazed flailings are in vain and delighting in my miserable predicament.

I hope that the mosquitoes in Ireland are as stupid as those in Spain and as few as those in Antarctica.

The workload over the past few days has been lovely. It's leveled out at a happy medium of more than I did with Lesly, but less than l did the first few days of Anthony's placement here. Also, as Laura has admitted me into her glorious wonderland of a kitchen, I've been relegated to chopping and washing tasty fruits, vegetables, and seafood as opposed to wading through six inches of duck muck and digging out fenceposts. And while I didn't complain about the fenceposts, I'm very, VERY happy to be a part of the bustling kitchen that always smells of meat, herbs, and has a bucket of tantalizing fresh tomatoes at my disposal.

In cucina

Laura's fried fish. Straight from the Po.

Carla in cucina

Anthony and I worked a very late night on Saturday, so we were allowed all of Sunday to enjoy ourselves. We took the opportunity to bike an easy fifteen miles on two of Piero's old, rickety, knee destroying bicycles to a local beach. Laura packed us a lunch for the outing; sandwiches for Anthony and tomatoes, meat, and fruit for me (which I ate promptly upon arrival). I started reading one of Mark Twain's travel memoirs, and Anthony headed out to the sparkling, warm, gentle water of the Mediterranean. After reading a few witty chapters of Innocents Abroad, I proceeded to nap for far too long and soaked up a great deal too much sun. I returned to Ca'Lattis in such a state of blistering sunburn that Laura called me a "Pepperoni", to which I hung my "rosso" head and dolefully resoponded "Si. Tropo sole. Sono pepperoni."

The bike ride to the beach

Figure Four variation

Bakasana

Dragonfly

Some sort of splits...

The beach

A few more things about being in Italy:

The television is bad. Very, very bad. The sexism of this country shines through the scantily clad women hosting the many nonsensical Italian gameshows. Also, Italians are infatuated with the idea of the American West, so there is a constant stream of bad American Westerns playing in the background of every major meal; making me long for the first few days of my stay here when the television was broken. These soap opera-esque Westerns are trumped only by an important soccer game (which has caused me to become a bigger soccer fan than ever before). As the Western films have been dubbed in Italian, their silliness is exponentially increased. I spent the other night watching a drama dripping John Travolta wax on in Italian. It was pretty dreadful.

Since I last wrote, Anthony has earned Laura's approval to enter the kitchen. He demonstrated the greatness or his desire to join the culinary team by slicing open two buckets of fish at their gills and slurping their guts out through these tiny gill holes, in a manner reminiscent of some ancient Egyption mummification technique. This method of gutting leaves the head attached to the gutless fish, so you can pop it into the fryer as is for an aesthetically pleasing whole fish. Anthony did a marvelous job of this, but regardless of Laura's approval, Piero refuses to let Anthony into the kitchen whenever guests are present. Apparently he doesn't want the guests thinking that just anyone can go in and out of his kitchen. This strikes me a little odd, because he has absolutely no issue with me being in the kitchen when guests are present. But I'm a lady, so I guess that's where I belong.

Fresh from the Po

Anthony earning the keys to the kitchen

I have now eaten chicken feet, some strange chicken stomach muscle, chicken heart, snails, and cortecchino (a sausage made out of a pig's nasty bits). If only my fifteen year old squeamish self could see me now.

Boiled chicken feet

Snails, polenta, and sausage wrapped with rabbit

The music here is still very American. The only time I get to hear any Italian music is when I'm in the kitchen with Laura. If I go to any public place, I'm bombarded with a stream of bad American country and pop such as Brittney Spears. At least they haven't found a way to dub it yet.

The animals have more rights here in Italy than they do in the States. This means that pounds can't just euthanize animals willy-nilly, but it also means that neutering your pet is a more difficult process. The abundance of slinking cats and scampering kittens in every corner of Agritourismo Ca'Lattis is ample evidence of these animals' rights to keep their reproductive organs intact.

One of the many cats

Another of the many cats

Yet another cat

Horse and donkey are common restaurant entrees in an authentic Italian Ristorante. I have yet to try these animals, but I hear they are very good. It would be a little difficult for me to stomach a horse, though. I have too much sentimental attachment to those creatures to want them in my belly, no matter how good Anthony says they taste.

Conversation here... is always interesting. When Lesly was here, we'd sit around after dinner and have rather tedious, lengthy conversations via google translator. When Anthony arrived, we had tedious, somewhat awkward conversations via Anthony. Now that Anthony is gone (he left yesterday afternoon -- I've spent far too much time on this post) I've resorted to a lot of mime and strange noises. It's like a big game of charades all the time, punctuated by the few words of Italian I painstakingly butcher now and then. I'm much better at listening than speaking, though, and can occasionally grasp the underlying theme of entire conversations. I can understand Laura better than Carla, Carla better than Piero, Piero better than Angela, Angela better than Aldi, and Aldi... well, I can't understand Aldi at all. Where it gets a little comical is when I stop just listening and we all try to have a conversation around the table. Carla can understand me better than Laura, Laura understands me better than Piero, Piero understands me better than Angela, and Angela and Aldi don't understand me at all. Piero will say something to me that I don't understand at all. He'll turn to Carla and ask her to repeat it to me. Carla will try to repeat/translate Piero's bit of conversation, and I'll still be horribly confused. Carla will turn to Laura and ask her to try. Laura takes a deep breath, asks Piero just what it was he wanted to say again, and uses very slow, simple words to communicate Piero's comment. I'll understand something of what Laura said and try to respond. Laura won't understand my response, so she'll turn to Carla and ask what I said. Carla will ask me to repeat myself, and then she'll translate what I said to Piero.

Who never seems to be quite satisfied with the outcome.

I've also learned that Italian is a VERY diverse language. Anthony studied Italian in college and lived in Rome for half a year. He speaks fluent Italian, but still had a hell of a time understanding Laura. Why? Because of all the dialects. When I think of dialects, I think of different regions of a country wherein pronunciations for various words differ. When Italians think of dialects, they think of whole words that are completely different. Rovigo has its own dialect, and while being similar to Italian, is most definitely not Italian. Laura has lived in Taglio del Po all of her life, so her dialect is very strong. Thus, it came as a bit of a shock to me that I'm not even learning Italian during my stay here. I'm learning the Rovigo dialect, which has more French mixed in than standard (if there is such a thing) Italian language.

The good Lord has been having a hearty laugh at my expense, as of late. When I flew into Italy, figs were at the top of my list of things to try to eat all the time. I had all sorts of grand plans regarding finding a fig tree with its overburdened branches overhanging someone's fence and sneaking off every morning to breakfast on a few of the succulent fruits. Alas, while I was able to enjoy some superb figs with Svetlana in Bologna, I have most certainly not been able to find any figs overhanging a local fence. There were no figs at the supermercato, no figs in the fields, and not even a smidgen of fig ice-cream to be found at Roxy bar. I was quite devastated by this unforseen shortage, and for the first few days of my visit, I refused to face the seemingly undeniable fact of there just not being any figs in this part of the world. After two and a half weeks, however, I resigned myself to the fate of a figless stay on an Italian farm. But, the good Lord loves a laugh, so a couple of days after I'd stopped looking under the leaves of every tree in Taglio del Po (about five, give or take), some tourists bike through with an entire basket filled to the brim with figs. Unfortunately, these irreverent hoodlums had left the basket in the back of their sunbaked car for an entire afternoon, thus spoiling the entire batch. I was promptly comissioned to carry the dripping basket of fermenting figs to the ducks. To their credit, the ducks did demonstrate the proper amount of enthusiasm upon receiving such a delectable treat.

Fichi!

The next day, Carla's parents came back from their stay in Padua with Carla's sister. They pull into the driveway, pop open the back, and what should be sitting atop the precariously stacked suitcases but TWO baskets of figs? I was elated. Surely I'd be able to eat at least one of these bit sized pieces of heaven. So I waited for the figs to make their appearance with dinner, but was dreadfully disappointed by a figless fruit salad. I have never been so angry with a canteloupe in all my life. The next morning, though... the next morning, I got what was coming to me. I appeared for capucchino at eight thirty, per use. I went to the back of the restaurant and grabbed my breakfast apple, eyeing the seductive baskets of figs longfully, but refusing to steal the forbidden fruit. Carla brought me my capucchino, saw the lone "pomo" upon my plate, and asked, "No fichi?"

To which I promptly bolted to the back of the restaurant and grabbed four. I ate two on the way to the table, so when I sat down Carla thought that I had only grabbed two. She said, "Due?" and headed back into the back room for more. She brought out an entire platter of figs and set it in front of me with the maternal word "Mangi!", to which I've never so readily complied. However, I ate far too many fichi that morning. And the next morning. I ate so many fichi that I suffered from a terrible migraine headache last night and had to head to bed early.

But I think God laughed enough, because today has been absolutely idyllic.

I woke up bright and early and biked down to Medea's (the cheese woman) house at seven o'clock. The weather was perfect, the dogs didn't follow me, and I actually felt quite refreshed after my migraine induced full night's rest. Laura met me at Medea's at seven thirty, but the loquacious cheese woman's brother had just finished milking the sheep, so she told us to come back in an hour. While we waited for Medea to cook her brother breakfast, Laura and I biked the three hundred meters to her tidy apartment, where she proceeded to make me a capucchino and introduce me to her vegetables, ducks, and meat grinding/sausage making machines.

Oca Marina 

The Po

One of the many ruined houses in the Po

I suspect Bella

I want to live here

Po Delta crops. Not figs. 

We were back at Medea's at not a second past eight thirty. I pointed out Medea's two fig trees to Laura (I'd been eyeing them for some time), and Laura confirmed my suspicion that the green figs weren't quite ripe yet. Medea overheard this comment, and very loudly exclaimed that no, they were perfectly ripe. They were perfectly ripe and I ought to help myself. The ripe ones were just near the top...so I catapulted myself up the tree and climbed down carefully with five precious figs about my person. Medea gave me a bag for them, placed them carefully into my bike basket, and led me into the magical room where she makes her superb goat and sheep cheese. I was able to help with a soft sheep cheese as well as the leftover ricotta.

Medea and Laura

The sheep cheese cauldron

The draining table

Ricotta with whey

Warm sheep ricotta and whey is a delicious drink, by the way.

When Medea found out that I'd be WWOOFing in Ireland after Italy, she gave me five euros and insisted that I send her a postcard. I told her that five euros was far too much for a postcard, but she refused to give me change, telling me to buy a postcard for her and a cappuccino for myself.

Carla and Laura discussing the price of mozzarella 

Have I mentioned how much I love Italians?

I ate the figs on the bike ride home, fed the animals, scoured the garden for melons, tomatoes, and eggplants, and then spent the rest of the morning helping Laura in the kitchen. I'm now drinking an espresso and writing you as I wait for my abundant lunch to settle before I practice yoga.

It's been a wonderful day.

Shattered Expectations -- Roxy Bar, Agritourismo Ca'Lattis

I'm starting this post off at Roxy Bar, a quaint little place across the Po River in the nearby town of Santa Giulia. This is a bar where the local Italians come to spend their hot and humid afternoons playing cards, drinking beer/wine, eating gelato, smoking cigarettes, and animatedly playing cards. Santa Giulia itself is a town with a with a gas station (where fuel costs a euro fifty a liter) and a bar. And...and... and...

And I'm pretty sure that just about covers it.

At Roxy Bar with Leslie

I've spent the last two weeks at the Agritourismo Ca'Lattis here in the lush plains of the Po Delta. The farm is about forty feet away from the Po River, and the road that runs beside it is idyllic for morning running. The sun seems enormous here, and if I leave the house at six, I get to enjoy watching it rise over the river with the herons and the few Italian fisherman awake before ten. 

The bridge to Santa Giulia

Biking the Po with Leslie

The Po River

This being Italy, I had also anticipated that I'd be running amidst acres of vineyards and olive trees and caper bushes.

Not so.

I happened to pick the one region of Italy where the land is not used for growing grapes, olives, hazelnuts, or figs. Here, they grow rice, corn, wheat, soybeans, melons, and alfalfa. The products are similar to a typical American monoculture farm, but they are produced by very different people in very different weather under a very different government. I'm enjoying my time here and I don't regret choosing this farm, but next time I WWOOF in Italy I'll research the region a bit more thoroughly. To me, Italy means figs and olives and wine. Not soybeans and corn.

One of the many flat fields. Sans grapes. 

As I spent much of this spring geeking out to "The History of Rome" podcast whilst working at my father's shop, I've hence spent many mornings mucking out stalls and thinking, "Wow... I wonder if Hannibal ever made it here..." or "Maybe I'm walking where Julius Caesar..." or "If Trajan led his troops past..." However, my fellow WWOOFer smashed all of my walking in famous footsteps dreams when she told me that the region of Taglio del Po is only a few hundred years old. The Agritourismo, horse stalls, and everything else as far as the eye can see (and as everything out here is flat as a Danish pancake, there's a lot the eye can see) used to be under water. The Po River swept over this entire expanse of land, draining into the ocean and creating vast marshes as it meandered along. A brilliant fellow came along in the sixteenth century and decided to turn all the unusable marshland into farmland. "Taglio di Po" literally translates into "I cut the Po." Which is the reason this verdant landscape has no trees and an overabundance of mosquitoes.

I've been doing a lot more work the past few days. Leslie left last Thursday, I spent Friday being the only English speaker in all of Taglio del Po, and Anthony arrived Saturday night, taking on the role of the only English AND Italian speaker in all of Taglio del Po. I've enjoyed his company and I enjoy being able to communicate with my hosts more effectively via Anthony, but with this more effective communication comes a good deal more work. Some is quite enjoyable, some is grin and bear it type work. I spent all of Tuesday morning prying wire off of the anatrae (duck) fence. What went from a work with animals in the morning, help with dishes in the early afternoon and have late afternoon free to nap and go to the beach turned into work all the time. While I enjoy being here and I'm happy to help out, I did reach the point of being like, "Dude... please remember that I'm not getting paid for this."

Except I don't speak Italian. So I grinned and bore it.

On a rather controversial note, I've been able to take advantage of Italy's rather sexist culture to weasel my way into the kitchen with Laura. She's a brilliant chef who is VERY jealous of her kitchen, and I am the first WWOOFer she's allowed to do anything other than wash dishes and make salads. I think I convinced her of my strong desire to learn when I spent five hours stalwartly schlepping slimy snails from their shells and deboning raw sardines that had been fermenting in salt for the past three months. My hands and clothes reaked of "sarde" for hours afterwards, but I had won the key to the coveted kitchen. Since my snail/sardine trial through fire, I've been able to help with a delicious eggplasmnt parmesian, ragout, and petit quail egg sandwhiches. Poor Anthony has not been as fortunate. Anthony is a very suave, well-dressed, finance major from the corn fields of Ohio, but comes from an Italian family and cooking is his passion. He would do anything to spend his days in the kitchen with Laura, but because of his gender, Piero insists that Anthony work outside on the duck fence. And the horse fence. And be there whenever a tractor is involved. Whenever Anthony creeps into the kitchen, Carla laughs a little and says something along the lines of, "L'uomo in cucina!" I feel sorry for his outdoors only sentence, but not quite sorry enough to give up my so recently earned key to Laura's kitchen.

In the kitchen with Laura and Carla

Speaking of Laura... funny story. Laura has a three year old granddaughter: a very energetic, precocious, spoiled, whirlwind of little Laura (we called her Lauretta). Because I'm a lady, whenever tourists came into the restaurant, I was given "Guardi Lauretta" duty. As I love kids and am usually pretty good with them, this assignment didn't bother me at all. Initially. I quickly found out just how difficult it is to keep a three year old quiet when you can't understand a word they're saying. I also found out that the generally recognized phenomenon of Italians needing much less personal space than the rest of us begins at a very early age. A lot earlier than three. My afternoons with Lauretta were full of her babbling on in Italian at a consistent supersonic speed, then pausing for a brief moment to slam her cheek into mine, or ram her curly head into my chest. She played with my pants, my shirt, my shoes, my face. When she ran out of things to play with, she'd jump off my lap and run into the kitchen to tell "Nonna Laura" a new word she'd learned in "Inglese". I'd stumble after her to make sure that she didn't leave a trail of carnage in her wake, only to be struck by the three foot tornado on her way out the door, demanding that I pick her up and throw her into the air. I'd oblige, and then carry her back to our chair near the front of the restaurant. Near the end of our second day together, she started teaching me some Italian games. Such as the Italian version of "Where is Thumpkin?" However, the cream of the crop was what "I eat your nose" segued into. Lauretta was on my lap and I was doing my best to engage her and keep her from harassing the three dining tourists. She faced me and grabbed my nose, saying (in Italian), "I eat your nose!" tucking her thumb between her index and middle finger just like we do in the States. I laughed at her and tousled her hair a bit. Emboldened, she proceeded to grab my breasts and shout at the top of her longs, "I eat your tits!"

At which point I decided that Lauretta and I needed to go outside.

Lauretta

Lauretta and Leslie

Lauretta napping. FINALLY. 

Lauretta's naps are far too short for how much energy she has upon waking. 

On a rather unfortunate note, I've ran into an obstacle that's put an end to my morning yoga and running. Or rather, I've run into two obstacles. Or rather, two obstacles have insisted on running with me. Bella and Brando, the two eight month old Tibetan Mastiffs, thwart my attempts to run by myself at every turn. When I open my trailer in the morning, they're there waiting for me, tongues lolling and tails wagging. Bella has even taken up the habit of sleeping under my trailer, snoring up a storm and attracting a cloud of mosquitoes. Normally, I wouldn't mind sharing my morning runs with a couple of enthusiastic, athletic dogs, but these Tibetan Mastiffs are definitely an exception to this rule. They're disobedient, aggressive, bring home animals that they've killed and decapitated, jump all over people, charge other dogs, and are generally just bad running buddies. When I'd run, they'd continually cut me off, as if it were some sort of dominace play. And as they'd just finished splashing about in an irrigation ditch, I'd lose my stride AND get drenched in foul smelling water. It took all the pleasure out of running, imagining what would happen if they attacked a local and I had to try to call the dogs off, doing my best to explain in my limited Italian that these are not my dogs and I don't know how to handle them. And this is a real fear, as Bella and Brando have a couple of siblings in the delta with behavorial problems. As in, they have a couple of siblings who have bitten people.

Brando sleeps under my trailer. To make sure I can't sneak off on my morning run without him.  Clever bastard. 

Hence, I now sleep in the mornings and do at least an hour of yoga in the afternoons. No more running until Ireland. No more morning yoga until Ireland either, as whenever I bring out my yoga mat, both Bella and Brando plop down on top of it. I have to wait until Carla opens up the restaurant and morning work is finished and the day is boiling hot. Oh well. Yoga is best done in a heated environment, anyway.

I have eleven days left at this farm, and I am pretty ready to move on. I'd like to try WWOOFing in Italia again someday, but I'd like to find a farm where they grow traditional Italian crops, a couple of people speak English, and the expectations they have of WWOOFers is more clearly defined. On the WWOOF Italia website, Carla had written that we'd work five hours a day, five days a week, that English was spoken, and that we'd get to work with horses and go kayaking in our time off. We don't have any full days off, there are no horses to ride, NO English is spoken, and I have yet to see a kayak. The most difficult is the communication, though. They just keep speaking at me in Italian and expecting me to understand. I'm starting to get very frustrated about the whole situation. I would feel a bit more congenial if they had advertised themselves as a farm wherein you needed to speak Italian to function, but they clearly said that English was spoken, so I assumed that as I speak English, I'd be able to communicate with the Italians here just fine. I can't ask questions, I can't voice opinions, I can't really talk to Carla about my problem with the dogs, and when Anthony leaves on Wednesday, I'll be without a voice for the remainder of my time here.

Well, I'm off to feed the ducks and horses. I love you all and will write again soon.

-Aimee